Garden Of The Abyss

Archard was as wordless as he had been, with Memo not deviating much differently from that same path.

After letting the residual smoke and volatile pollen clear, they stepped through the abrasively-opened entrance to the castle, having to walk over the fallen, perforated gates that were running hot from the potent heat released in the spell's destruction.

The main lobby of the castle was finally viewable to his eyes as he stepped past the cloud obscuring his vision at the threshold.

"...That's about what I expected," he wryly said.

It was clear to see that it was once a lavish estate; the smooth, wooden flooring, the quartz railings that accompanied the carpeted stairways.

But, it was no longer such a place.

Strewn across the railings, the bodies of those who once resided in Castle Desmas were perched, half-eaten, decayed, and swarmed with flies. A constant dripping sound filled the eerie castle as the blood from the multitude of bodies fell to the flooring below, soaking into the wooden floorboards.

"Damn, it reeks in here," Samfrey scrunched his nose.

"Looks like the other adventurers got this far," Memo commented.

"Huh?" He looked at the cardinal-haired man.

Turning his gaze towards what the greatsword-wielding man was looking at, he saw a pair of decrepit corpses laid on torn furniture, being hovered by flies just the same as their pale, lifeless skin was slick with blood.

"If only we'd gotten here sooner," Archard lamented.

"It wouldn't have made a difference whether we got here earlier or not," Memo responded abrasively, "these guys were long dead."

Some things just don't need to be said. I understand that adventurers become unphased by death, but…it should still be respected, he thought.

Samfrey walked around the lobby, inspecting the shattered pottery and the shredded paintings before meeting back in the middle as the others looked around the same.

"I know I'm not the only one thinking this, but…" Samfrey began saying, "isn't it weird how we haven't seen a single lacyrie inside of here?"

"I, too, had the same thought," Archard added.

Begrudgingly, he turned to face Calytrix, who looked up at him with that same, troublesome smile she always seemed to wear.

"Do you have a guess on what's going on here?" He asked her.

Her eyes lit up at his question as if finally being validated in her abilities, twirling around him as she held her index finger close to her chin.

"...I do, but it's not something I need the leylines of darkness to guide my mind to," she told him.

"What do you mean?" Samfrey asked with a raised eyebrow, looking disgruntled.

He looked at her for a moment before finally understanding what she meant, "I think I have an idea; you're saying that the cause of this is pretty clear, huh?"

"Indeed," Calytrix told him.

It was right there in front of his eyes; what he thought was just more blood lining the walls and floors was something different entirely–a black, sooty substance that stretched across the once lavish walls, all coalescing to a single point in the middle of the staircase.

A further glance was needed, but he realized that the middle of the widthy staircase was desecrated–sunken in and decayed by the sooty substance.

He stood on the torn, blood-stained steps of the velvet carpet that lined the steps, looking down at the hole that sunk down to the very bottom of the castle's depths.

"Of course subterranean beasts wouldn't take refuge in a surface home," he said, looking back at the others, "...they'd go back to what's comfortable for them."

"They seized this castle, only to not even properly use it?" Memo said, stepping beside him as he peered down into the abyssal, vertical tunnel.

It was difficult to see past its shadowy depths as no light persisted in the halls of the castle; black, slimy goop lined the walls of the downwards, unnatural tunnel, leading to something that reeked of an abhorrent stench.

"They did not come here for the castle," Calytrix corrected him, using her sable, laced boot to kick some pebbles down the tunnel, "they came here for food."

Samfrey glanced around at the slew of bodies hanging around the castle, "Aren't they, urr…being pretty wasteful then?"

"It doesn't matter if it's fresh or rotten, they'll consume it all the same. I'd say this is their way of "storing" their food. They seize land such as this and keep the bodies laid out in these structures," Calytrix guessed, placing her hand at her side.

Memo unbuckled his sword from his back, resting the hunk of steel against his shoulder as he knelt before the tunnel, "Hey, boss-man."

He looked at the knelt adventurer, "Yeah?"

"How about we just blast this tunnel? Those things wouldn't even be able to put up a fight," Memo suggested.

As he thought about it for a moment, Archard was the one who dissuaded the idea as he checked the tunnel, rubbing the sooty substance between the fingers of his metallic gauntlets.

"That won't work," Archard said.

"Huh?" Memo let out, seeming displeased with the wizened man's words.

"The proof of completion wouldn't recognize the quest being fulfilled that way," Archard informed, "we have to recognize the elimination of the lacyrie personally."

"Unfortunately, it is true," Calytrix said, supplementing the veteran's words.

They all paused in silence for a minute, peering down the stench-ridden, ominous tunnel with hesitant feelings afloat.

"Guess there's no other option, is there?" He sighed out loud, tapping the dull side of his blade against his shoulder.

"Damn, I'm not going to wash the smell from my clothes for months…" Samfrey breathed out in disgust.

"Be cautious," Archard said, "we're entering enemy territory. This is their natural terrain; we're venturing into their world."

"Don't need to tell me," Memo scoffed.

After they all braced themselves for a moment more, it was Memo who took the first leap down, followed by Archard, then Samfrey, who looked as if he was going to cry from the stench, then Calytrix, who pulled him along down with her at the same time.

"Hey–wait!" He let out, but it was too late.

"Are you afraid of the darkness, Ren?" Calytrix asked with a smirk.

Amidst their descent down the lengthy, abnormally long tunnel downwards, he looked at her with a disgruntled expression before choosing not to indulge her quirky monologues.

Looking up, he watched the hole atop grow more and more distant as a rancid stench became all that persisted in the stagnant, stale air below the surface.

–It was what felt like an eternity of falling, but after dozens of seconds, he landed with a splash beneath his boots, regrouping with the rest of the group.

"Ugh…" Samfrey held a repulsed expression as he looked down.

They were knee-high in an unknown pool of liquids, or rather, a mixture of a lot of unknown liquids, mixing together into a deathly smell.

Even in the darkness abundant in the unknown depths, he could tell it wasn't water, not just by the stench, but by the thickness of it; beneath the soles of his boots, the ground was squishy and giving, squelching beneath each step.